Meaning Making in Early Childhood Research asks readers to rethink research in early childhood education through qualitative research practices reflective of arts-based pedagogies. This collection explores how educators and researchers can move toward practices of meaning making in early childhood education. The text’s narrative style provides an intimate portrait of engaging in research that challenges assumptions and thinking in a variety of international contexts, and each chapter offers a way to engage in meaning making based on the experiences of young children, their families, and educators.

Making Meaning is a synthesis of theory, research, and practice that explicitly presents art as a meaning making process. This book provokes readers to examine their current understandings of language, literacy and learning through the lens of the various arts-based perspectives offered in this volume; provides a starting point for constructing broader, multimodal views of what it might mean to “make meaning”; and underscores why understanding arts-based learning as a meaning-making process is especially critical to early childhood education in the face of narrowly-focused, test-driven curricular reforms. Each contributor integrates this theory and research with stories of how passionate teachers, teacher-educators, and pre-service teachers, along with administrators, artists, and professionals from a variety of fields have transcended disciplinary boundaries to engage the arts as a meaning-making process for young children and for themselves.

Creativity is a key theme in early childhood studies at the moment & is increasingly highlighted in all manner of early childhood academic courses. This book will form the link between creativity & literacy with concrete examples of children's meaning making, as well as offering a protocol for students to follow.

This Australian text is about children’s voices – their minds, feelings, souls. It’s about how children’s voices are liberated through the arts, and how children make and communicate meaning through still and moving images, sounds, textures, gestures and the use of many other signs. It is also about how teachers, parents, peers and the community influence children’s early development, and how quality arts education in early childhood is an essential component of lifelong learning. The authors are teachers and researchers who are respected for their contributions to early childhood arts education. All of them have addressed their topics via practical examples, which are embedded in current philosophies and theories, often stemming from original research and firsthand interactions with children.

This thesis explores preschool class children’s meaning making processes when they encounter evolution. By adopting social semiotic and sociocultural perspectives on meaning making, three group-based tasks were designed. Video data from the activities were analysed using a multimodal approach. The analysis focuses on how the communicated science content affects the science focus of the tasks, how different materials function as semiotic resources and influence meaning making, and interactive aspects of doing science in the meaning-making processes. The findings reveal that, by using the provided materials and their previous experiences, the children argue for different reasons for animal diversity and evolution. Throughout the tasks, a child-centric view of life emerged in a salient manner. This means that, apart from the science focus, the children also emphasise other aspects that they find important. The child-centric perspective is suggested to be a strength that enables children to engage in science activities. The results show that the provided materials had three functions. Children use materials as resources providing meaning. This means that the children draw on the meaning potential of the materials, a process that is influenced by their previous experiences. Moreover, in interaction with peers, the materials also serve as communicative and argumentative tools. Thus, access to materials influences the children’s meaning making and enables them to discuss evolution and “do science”. The findings also reveal an intimate relationship between task context and interaction. More scripted tasks convey more child–adult interaction (scaffolding) while less scripted tasks, during which children build on previous experiences instead of communicated science content, stimulates child–child interaction (mutual collaboration). In scaffolding interactions, a greater emphasis is placed on the science topic of the task due to guidance from the adult. Consequently, meanings made by children in more scripted tasks are more likely to be “scientifically correct”. However, if the teacher or the adult steps back and allows the children to engage in mutual collaboration, they engage in multiple ways of doing science through evaluating, observing, describing and comparing. Overall, the research reported in this thesis suggests that task contexts and materials have a great impact on children’s meaning making and how science is done. Den här avhandlingen utforskar förskolebarns meningsskapandeprocesser kring evolution. Tre gruppbaserade aktiviteter har designats. Videodata har analyserats utifrån ett multimodalt perspektiv på kommunikation. Analysen fokuserar på hur kommunicerade naturvetenskapliga beskrivningar av evolution påverkar aktiviteternas naturvetenskapliga fokus, materials funktion som semiotiska resurser och påverkan på meningsskapande och interaktiva aspekter av att göra naturvetenskap. Avhandlingens resultat visar att barnen, genom att använda material och sina tidigare erfarenheter, för olika resonemang kring varför djur utvecklas och blir olika. Genomgående har barnens syn på världen en betydande roll för meningsskapandeprocessen. Det betyder att barnen, förutom att fokusera på det naturvetenskapliga innehållet i aktiviteterna, också lägger stor vikt vid andra aspekter som är viktiga för dem. Det barncentrerade perspektivet förslås vara en styrka som möjliggör för barn att delta i och engageras av naturvetenskapliga aktiviteter. De material som barnen har tillgång till de i de olika aktiviteterna har tre funktioner. Barnen använder material som meningsgivande resurser, vilket betyder att barnen använder materialens meningspotential. Denna process påverkas av barnens tidigare erfarenheter. Vidare används materialen som kommunikativa- och argumentativa redskap i interaktion med andra. Tillgången till material påverkar således barnens meningsskapande och möjliggör att de kan diskutera evolution påverkar barnens naturvetenskapliga handlande. Avhandlingens resultat visar på en nära relation mellan uppgifters kontext och interaktion. Mer styrda aktiviteter medför mer interaktion mellan barn och vuxna (scaffolding). Mindre styrda aktiviteter, där barnen bygger på sina tidigare erfarenheter, stimulerar istället interaktion mellan barnen (mutual collaboration). Som ett resultat av den vuxnes agerande, läggs det större vikt vid det naturvetenskapliga innehållet (evolution) i scaffolding-interaktioner. Följaktligen är de meningar som skapas i mer styrda aktiviteter mer i linje med naturvetenskapliga förklaringar till evolution. Samtidigt finns det ett samband mellan att den vuxne kliver åt sidan och att barnen kliver fram och gör naturvetenskapliga handlingar som att utvärdera, observera, beskriva och jämföra. Sammanfattningsvis visar den här avhandlingen att uppgifters kontext och material har stor påverkan på barns meningsskapande och hur de gör naturvetenskap.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

The Meaning Makers traces the language and literacy development of a large, representative sample of children from age 1 to 10, quoting liberally from observations made at home and at school. Setting the findings of the study in the context of recent research, it offers suggestions for improving children's opportunities for learning.